Ebenezer Scourge
by Recalled to Life
Summary: A retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. On the last Twelfth Perigee's Eve before Sgrub, Vriska is visited by the ghosts of her (presently alive) friends, who attempt to instill the spirit of the holiday in her in an effort to prevent her from dooming any more timelines.
1. Stave 1- Megido's Ghost

Aradia Megido was dead to begin with. That's a key point to remember in the course of this tale. She was as dead as a doornail, and without that knowledge, parts of this story will make precious little sense and almost all of it will be of very little interest.

Another very key fact to this narrative is that Vriska Serket was the reason that Aradia was dead.

It was quite some time before Vriska and Aradia would play a game that would change their lives (or lack thereof), but long enough after they had both experienced their respective tragic FLARP-related accidents that they could begin to recover and move on (or not).

It was Twelfth Perigee's Eve when Aradia and Vriska were reunited under very peculiar circumstances for a very important purpose. It was a quiet night before the Twelfth Perigee and Vriska Serket had no choices but to spend it alone with her lusus or spend it alone while avoiding her lusus. Terezi wasn't speaking to her. Tavros was trying not to. Sollux hadn't been online in weeks, a huge surprise for that massive nerd. And Aradia was certainly the last one who would drop her a line of holiday cheer. Really, the only people who weren't shunning Vriska were Kanaya and that Eridan kid. And honestly, Vriska wasn't feeling very festive herself. She figured that she would spend the Twelfth Perigee alone in her room. There was really no point in risking becoming the holiday feast for her lusus. Thinking of which, it was really time to get back to FLARPing, now that her new robot arm was functioning quite well. Honestly, Vriska shouldn't have taken such a long break as it was.

However, it was the holidays, and Spidermom could wait another day or two for her next meal. Hopefully she could…

On second thought, Marquise Spinneret Mindfang might be making her return to the FLARP scene just in time for the holiday. She could decide for sure when she woke up in the evening, after a nice day's sleep (as far as a day of sleep could be nice for a member of a species plagued by horrible nightmares).

Vriska climbed into her recuperacoon, completely oblivious to how bizarre this particular day's nightmare was about to be. At least, a nightmare was what she tried to explain it away as after the fact.

She allowed the sopor slime to envelop her and soothe her, distract her from the stressful thoughts of Spidermom's next meal, the loss of a sister, and the disintegration of several friendships. After all, who needed friends? Certainly not Vriska, who could only be weighed down by others. Yeah, everything was going to turn out just fine. If Terezi refused to respond to her messages, well then, one Scourge Sister was more than enough to kick all the ass. All of it.

However, just as she was about to drift off into a nice dream filled with carnage wrought by Vriska herself, she was dragged into a very different dream. A dream that began with Vriska being pulled out of her recuperacoon and into a painful, metallic slap.

"Wake up, Serket. You're not going to sleep. Not yet anyway."

Whatever Vriska expected to see when she opened her eyes, it wasn't Aradia Megido staring back at her. Although, to be fair, Vriska wasn't quite sure that it was Aradia that she was looking at. After all, as was explained not too long ago, Aradia was dead and Vriska was the ultimate reason behind that. And, while this robot was the spitting image of the dead girl, she was definitely a robot, which would be a new development.

"Don't give me that look. I guess you weren't expecting to see me again after you killed me, but trust me, we'll see each other more than either of us wants in the future."

Vriska wasn't sure what look she was giving this robot girl who even sounded just like Aradia, but she attempted to stop giving it immediately. She didn't want to be on the receiving end of another slap like that last one.

"You're listening now?" Aradia said. "Good. Because to be honest, I don't want to be here, dealing with you. So let's make this as quick and painless as possible."

Aradia unceremoniously dropped Vriska to the floor, breaking a stray Magic 8 Ball in the process. More bad luck, no matter that neither party involved in the breakage needed any more of that.

"I hope you know what an intolerable bitch you are," Aradia continued, "that we have to put on this whole masquerade to stop you from messing up the timeline. Really, I think this is the most elaborate, staged nonsense I've ever had to subject myself to in order to stop everything from spinning off into another doomed timeline, and I've done a lot of nonsense with that goal in mind."

Vriska conquered her shock (and mild fear) long enough to smirk. "For someone who's in a hurry and doesn't want to waste time on nonsense, you sure are spouting a lot of it."

She received a mechanical foot to her stomach as a reply.

"Listen, I'm very angry with a lot of things right now, and you're at the top of that list, believe or not. You're almost so awful that you're not worth getting angry about. I just want you to know that what happens today wasn't my idea. I'm just the messenger," Aradia explained.

"Well how could it be your idea? You're dead!" Vriska spat. "I have to say, if this is Equius's idea of a joke, it's really not very funny."

"This isn't a joke. It's a warning. Honestly, I'm the only one who could deliver it while you were still awake, given some circumstances. But if you won't listen, then there's not much point in telling you. So go back to sleep, pretend you never saw me. I'm okay with that."

Two devices appeared by Aradia's sides. They resembled music boxes, but glowed blue and floated in midair. Vriska didn't know what they were, but she could imagine nothing good.

"Okay, wait!" Vriska rolled her eyes. "Really, now you're being dramatic. Just say what you need to, and I'll listen."

"Okay." Aradia seemed to relax a bit, but she didn't put away her music boxes. "You're unaware of timelines for now, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that in the future, you keep messing them up with your selfishness. So this is the best solution we could think of, when it became apparent that we were all doomed. Today, as you sleep, you will be visited by three ghosts."

"Sounds a bit old hat for you, Megido. And tell me, how has life been treating you since you tried pulling that trick on me?" Vriska was fully expecting another blow, but felt that it was worth it.

But no blow was forthcoming. "These ghosts are going to be very different from the ones I sent. They're still your victims, but they'll be much more… personal. And hopefully, they'll be much more successful at making you feel some remorse for your actions, maybe even enough to prevent some of them from happening in the first place.

"Each ghost will appear at the sound of a chime. You should understand well enough once it starts happening. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have somewhere I need to go and die. Again." And with that, the glow of the music boxes enveloped Aradia and she vanished without a trace.

Vriska was never quite sure if that part of her final Twelfth Perigee's Eve was a dream or not. All she knew was that after Aradia was gone, she was still lying on the floor of her room, on top of a broken Magic 8 Ball, dripping with sopor slime and feeling very sore. Disoriented and a bit frightened, she decided that the safety of her recuperacoon was the best place to be. As she climbed in and allowed the sopor slime to sedate her, she convinced herself that it was just a strange dream and oddly synchronized sleepwalking episode. She had never sleepwalked before and, given her living situation, it was something she was going to have to keep her eye on. But it was something to worry about when she woke up. In the meantime, there was nothing unusual to be afraid of, and even if ghosts did show up, according to Vriska's experience, they were going to be harmless, if extremely irritating. She managed to calm herself down and was quite sure that everything would be fine.

At least, she was sure that everything would be fine until she heard Trollian's message chime come from her sleeping computer and felt a chill run down her spine.


	2. Stave 2- The First of the Three Ghosts

It was just her imagination. It had to be. Even if someone were messaging her at this time of day, her computer was off.

Unfortunately for Vriska's ease of mind and her beauty sleep, Trollian chimed again. And again and again and again. It sounded like someone couldn't shut up. If it was this late, then it was probably important. It had better be. Vriska wrenched herself from her recuperacoon and dragged herself over to her computer, barely bothering to clean the slime off of herself. She gazed, bleary-eyed, at the screen, and was increasing agitated by what she saw.

-carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

CG: RISE AND SHINE.

CG: COME ON, YOU'VE GOT PLACES TO BE, THINGS TO SEE.

CG: ME TO TORMENT BECAUSE I APPARENTLY ALLOWED MYSELF TO GET DRAGGED INTO THIS LIKE A CHUMP.

CG: DOESN'T THE IDEA OF MAKING ME EVEN MORE MISERABLE THAN I ALREADY AM SOUND LIKE GREAT MOTIVATION TO GET OUT OF YOUR COCOON?

CG: OH, APPARENTLY IT IS SINCE YOU JUST GOT UP. CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ACHIEVEMENT. HOW MANY LEVELS DID YOU GAIN FOR THAT?

CG: YOU HAVE REACHED A NEW RUNG ON YOUR ECHELADDER. "YOU-LOOK-DEAD SHUFFLER." AND TRUST ME, I KNOW WHAT DEAD TROLLS LOOK LIKE NOW.

CG: WOW, MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE STILL COVERED IN SLIME BUT YOU REALLY LOOK DISGUSTING RIGHT NOW. MAYBE WORSE THAN DEAD.

CG: OKAY, NOW YOU'RE READING ALL THIS WARM, STEAMING SHIT, FRESH FROM THE DIGESTIVELY CHALLENGED MILKBEAST, THAT I JUST TYPED TO GET YOUR ATTENTION. IN A FEW SECONDS, I BET YOU'LL START WIPING THE SLIME OFF.

CG: THERE YOU GO. NOT MUCH BETTER IN MY OPINION, BUT I THINK THAT'S BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT YOUR PERSONALITY IS LIKE.

AG: Okay, Kark8, what do you even want?

CG: OOH, BUSTING OUT THE NONSENSICAL EIGHTS. TOUCHY TODAY, AREN'T YOU? OR ARE YOU JUST INTENT ON USING YOUR QUIRK IN HOPES THAT IT'LL FRUSTRATE ME AWAY? BECAUSE THAT'S NOT GOING TO WORK, UNFORTUNATELY.

CG: ANYWAY, ALL I WANT FROM YOU RIGHT NOW IS FOR YOU TO JUST TURN AROUND.

-carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

Vriska wheeled around, not actually certain that she could take whatever happened to be in the room with her, but more than willing to pretend to the contrary.

She was almost disappointed when it was only Karkat wearing some ridiculous clothes.

Really, he almost had no right to mock her appearance given what he was wearing. No trace of an actual blood color, as was expected from that overly secretive weirdo. Just a whole bunch of brown with a bright red symbol that certainly wasn't his. Vriska couldn't even begin to fathom why someone would wear a shirt with the design of a gaping chest wound in a color that wasn't even on the hemospectrum. And the long, flowing cape merely added to the ridiculousness of the ensemble. To Vriska's knowledge, Karkat didn't FLARP, which was the only reason she could think of for someone to wear a cape like that. Perhaps if he took a few steps forward, he would trip over it. It wasn't as if Vriska's room needed anymore tripping hazards. But none of this was the first thing that she felt needed to be addressed.

"How did you get into my hive?" Vriska said.

"Hmm, interesting," was all that Karkat said in reply.

Vriska had no patience for passive-aggressive Vantas posturing. "What's interesting? Actually, wait, I don't care! Because you didn't answer my question! How did you get into my hive?"

"Wow, Vriska, you're babbling incomprehensibly. You might want to keep that under wraps; word gets out, you might get culled. I caught the 'What's interesting?' though, so I'll answer your question. I think it's interesting that you didn't question Aradia's presence in your room at all, but I show up and that's your first thought. How could I possibly be here?"

"Well, Aradia is dead!" Vriska spat. "Why would I bother to wonder how she got into my room?"

"Sounds like she didn't tell you jack shit about the things that are going down tonight. I'm dead too," Karkat said. "We're all dead. You're dead too. We're your three guiding spirit ghosts, or some shit. Here to haunt you into being a slightly less reprehensible creature for as long as we need you to be."

Vriska suddenly noticed that Karkat's eyes were blank white. She supposed she had been too distracted by his outfit to make direct eye contact. But now that she had noticed, it was difficult to notice anything else. She suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to find a mirror, to make sure that her remaining eye was intact, that she wasn't also dead. She thought she felt about as warm as usual, but could that have been an illusion, part of the afterlife?

Karkat seemed to be able to read her mind. "Calm your spheres. You're still alive, to the anger and disappointment of many. And when you wake up, I'll still be alive too. I'm not your timeline's Karkat, he's an even bigger douchebag than I am. Listen, I got stuck with the boring recap episode in all of this, okay? I'm just here to show and tell you things that you already know, because you're apparently too dumb to remember things for yourself, in addition to having the heart of a particularly brutal imperial drone. Now can we get going already?"

Apparently, they could get going already. Before Vriska could even think a word of protest, she was engulfed by an all-encompassing sense of motion. When it ended, she was still standing in her room, although the blinds were up; the sun was down. There were also significantly less broken 8 Balls and overall, less clutter.

"Welcome to your wretched shithole of a past. Specifically, your Twelfth Perigees past," Karkat said. "As you can see, you're a slob who hasn't bothered picking up her mess for the past two sweeps."

"So from what I've gathered, your brilliant plan is to mock me until I suddenly become nicer? Really, letting me get some actual sleep might further your goal better than this nonsense," said Vriska.

"Okay, listen. For whatever convoluted reason, we decided to focus our efforts on the Twelfth Perigee for this nonsense. Believe me, I think it's nonsense even more than you do, but we were getting desperate. And of the three of us who decided to do this, I did what any good leader should do under the circumstances. I took the hardest job available. If anyone can do this right, I thought, it's me, the well-respected, cunning, and strikingly handsome leader. Hey, don't smirk at me like that! If that expression of yours makes me regurgitate whatever's left in my undead stomach, it'll be all over you. Anyway, my job was to look through your memories relating to the Twelfth Perigee and find something that would make you remember that you weren't always such a bitch.

"You probably can guess how well that worked out.

"So then I looked for happy memories that might motivate you to turn over a new leaf or something and, well… This was the best I could find. Don't get me wrong, I still burn with a purely platonic hatred for you, don't understand how we could be considered friends, what I did to deserve any sort of association with you, but… Your life is actually really shitty, maybe almost as bad as mine. So… my condolences?"

Vriska harrumphed in reply. She didn't need the condolences of a (probable) scumblood. After all, even if her life hadn't all been smooth sailing and was fraught with the threat of impending death by lusus, all it had done was make her stronger. She was the toughest one of all, intact body parts or no, and she knew it.

"Okay, fine, shoot down the olive branch, I don't care." Karkat waved his hand dismissively. "Just look back at your computer, you'll probably like what you'll see."

Vriska complied and found a much younger version of herself sitting at her computer.

"Coincidentally, this is about the time of the sweep that you two met. Four sweeps old and you were trolling through forums for suckers," Karkat said. "You said you were looking for a FLARP partner, and to an extent you were. But mostly, you were looking for a partner in crime, someone who'd help you kill as many trolls as your lusus wanted. And you found one."

Just as Karkat finished speaking, a smile crept across the young Vriska's lips. She renewed her typing a bit more feverishly.

"Ugh, you're so loud and you keep talking." Vriska rolled her eye. "I don't understand how she… I don't hear you. Didn't?"

"That's because we aren't actually traveling through time for this nonsense. This is just a faithful recreation of your memories," Karkat said. "Go ahead, get closer. You can even read your first conversation ever with Terezi if you look over her shoulder."

"Why would I need to do that? It wasn't that long ago."

"To reinforce that this is a thing that actually happened? I don't know, you're the one who needed this intervention."

"But I can remember meeting Terezi on my own. I don't remember it as a particularly holiday-ish experience, though, even if it was this time of the sweep."

"Fine." Karkat shrugged. "Fine by fucking me. I don't actually give three shits whether or not you look over her shoulder. Just thought you might want to remember that time you tried to manipulate someone and she wound up being your best friend for a few sweeps. Until you both backstabbed each other, anyway. You wound up being kind of fond of Tavros too, didn't you, even though you tossed him off a cliff? Really, I don't get your approach to relationships. If you had flushed feelings for him, the way you went about showing them has to be the weakest, most twisted attempt at flushed overtures I've ever seen. And trust me, I've seen a lot of overtures go terribly awry. Your actions toward him went beyond caliginous flirtation even. You don't drop a kismesis off a cliff, that's just something you don't do. And don't even get me started on the deal between you and Terezi…"

"Oh my god, stop. Just stop." Vriska interrupted long after she first wanted the conversation to be over. "If I wanted to be fussed over like this, I would just message Kanaya. Ugh, I can't wake up from this nightmare soon enough."

The grimace that crossed Karkat's face reflected a mixture of anger and disappointment. He sighed heavily before turning away and saying, "Okay, looks like I screwed this up. And I don't think Aradia is handing out any more re-dos; at least, not my Aradia. So wake up. Show what a fan-fucking-tastic leader I was. Here's hoping the other two have better luck, because you're a hard case to crack. Not like we were expecting differently, though."

"Well maybe your attempt at a feelings jam was too pathetic to accomplish whatever you were trying to accomplish!" But Vriska's protest reached only the walls of her empty respiteblock. The ghostly Karkat and Vriska were gone. The real Vriska, however, had too much of a headache to drift out of existence. The main thing on her mind was not the state of her relationships with her friends, though, but how Karkat's voice was just as irritating as she had expected it to be.


	3. Stave 3- The Second of the Three Ghosts

Vriska wasn't sure when exactly she drifted off, but she was quite certain that she was asleep again when she heard Trollian chime a few more times. It was time for another annoyance. She forced herself out of her cocoon and (paying a bit more attention to getting the slime off of her clothes this time) shuffled over to her computer. The messages she found this time were significantly more polite.

-grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

GA: Its Time For You To Get Up Again

GA: I Think Ive Given You Enough Time To Recover From Your Encounter With Karkat Anyway

GA: After Navigating The Obstacle Course That Is Your Room I Trust You Can Also Make Your Way Downstairs And Outside

GA: Dont Worry About The Sun

-grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

In retrospect, Vriska couldn't imagine Kanaya not being involved in all of this. It was characteristically fussy of her. As she ambled downstairs, she attempted to formulate a witty opening remark. _Hey, Fussyfangs! I should have known you'd be the mastermind behind this!_ No, that was too direct. _Kanayaaaaaaaa, can't a girl get her rest?_ No, that wasn't right either somehow. _I guess not even death can stop you from meddling with everyone you know!_ Yeah, that sounded good.

As Vriska stepped out the front door of her hive, however, all this was forgotten in a blinding flash of sunlight. She attempted to shield her face with her arms and closed her eye, as if that would do much good. She was so convinced that the light was going to blind and possibly incinerate her that it took her several moments to realize that it wasn't hurting her at all. She tentatively dropped her arms and opened her eye. After a moment or two, it adjusted to the light.

And the adjustment revealed that Vriska was no longer standing outside her hive, but outside of a very different one. Her ostentatious castle had been replaced by a strange structure with spires and orb-shaped rooms, and a volcano stood where Equius's hive was supposed to be. The ground was covered in snow and sheets, which seemed to be protecting various bushes, trees, and flowers from the frost. Really, it was entirely too cold in this dream. Fortunately, however, she was quickly granted a reprieve from one of the towers.

"Apologies for making you walk outside like that, but I needed some time to prepare!" A rather precise voice shouted from above. "You can come back up now."

A brightly dressed figure retreated to the other side of the window. Vriska rolled her eye. In the end, this probably wasn't going to be any better than a battle of insults with Karkat. She opened the door to the unfamiliar hive (which she correctly assumed was Kanaya's) and made her way back upstairs, to the tower room where she had seen her new guide.

Kanaya's hive was deathly quiet. Vriska wasn't sure if that was an unfortunate or a perfect choice of words, and she knew her hive was frequently just as silent, but it was still extremely unnerving to hear nothing but the sound of her own footsteps as she ascended the stairs. Fortunately, the soft sound of a measured voice interrupted Vriska's thoughts of dread before she reached Kanaya's respiteblock.

Vriska quietly opened the door at the end of the stairs and entered the room. Inside was Kanaya, curled up against her virgin mother grub lusus with a book in her lap. She finished the sentence she was reading before closing the book and looking up at Vriska. "It's good to see you," she said, "looking so alive. Sorry about the wait, but it takes a lot of effort to keep spaces like this together for any length of time."

She placed the book at her side and stood up. At first glance, she looked much more normal than Karkat. She had the same, jarring blank eyes, but was dressed more or less normally. Her dress flowed loosely over her form in vibrant greens and pinks. Sure, she was still dressed like a weirdo, but it was at least a Maryam-specific style of weird.

It started out as a Maryam-specific weird anyway. Soon enough, her dress morphed into a sleeveless black… thing with some rather baggy pants and a white swirl over the chest. Apparently, wherever they made clothing in the afterlife primarily dealt in FLARP-related pajamas or something. Still, Vriska was less interested in mocking Kanaya's outfit than Karkat's. There was also the matter of wings, which Kanaya seemed to have for some reason. A dream was a dream, Vriska supposed.

"Well, hopefully I stay that way for a long time! I mean, of course I will, because really, I'm too tough to die." Vriska laughed. "And even if I weren't, it's not like you'd let me, with all your worrying and fussing."

Kanaya did not seem wholly amused by Vriska's light-hearted response. "We should get started. As Karkat was charged with showing you images of Twelfth Perigees Past, my job today is to show you images of the Twelfth Perigee Present… or Twelfth Perigee Immediate Future, I suppose, but that's neither here nor there. You've entered my part of the scene. I spent… am spending… will spend? You'll have to forgive me, I'm dealing with three different tenses at once between my perspective and yours. Really, I do not envy Aradia's position. It may not be overly complicated, but it is unwieldy.

"I am spending this Twelfth Perigee at home with my lusus. In the coming days, it will serve as a peaceful memory to reflect upon during dark times, but that's the next troll's job. There's honestly not much to see here, so follow me."

Kanaya left her respiteblock, forcibly dragging Vriska behind her by the robotic hand, unwilling to let her be left alone. And it was a good thing that Kanaya was such a conscientious moirail, because the room they entered certainly wasn't the stairwell from Kanaya's hive. It seemed like the main block of a lowblood's hive, evidently Karkat's, as he was pacing on the other side of the block, pausing every few moments to look out the window.

"His lusus has been missing for a few days now. You wouldn't know because he's not speaking to you in this timeframe, but he's been worried sick," Kanaya explained. "And he has every reason to be. You can guess what his chances of survival would be if he suddenly didn't have a lusus."

A knock sounded at the door and Kanaya pushed Vriska out of the ghostly Karkat's way so he could see who it was. His face of dread gave way to relief when he found his crustacean lusus rather than an imperial drone. The reek of the behemoth leaving that the beast brought with it wafted through the dream, particularly pungent. Karkat ushered his lusus inside and began to tackle the task of transporting the leaving inside.

"I guess even that crab celebrates the holidays," Vriska mused.

"Of course he does." Kanaya shrugged. "We all do, I think. Except for you, maybe. I took the liberty of looking through the memories of my timeline's iteration of you once, and I don't believe you even had a small, symbolic leaving to decorate."

"Well, it's not like my lusus can leave the hive to go find one!" Vriska protested. "And I've been busy with other things. Irons in the fire, you know!"

"Fair enough." Kanaya rolled her eyes. "Well, it certainly smells like the Twelfth Perigee in this bubble now. Let's get going again." She closed the door on Karkat and the leaving, which was entirely too big for him to bring in by himself, and opened it again. This was apparently enough to completely change the location on the other side. Instead of Karkat's lawnring, Vriska found herself staring into a cramped respiteblock in a state of disarray. Kanaya beckoned Vriska to enter.

The place was filled with shoddily built ramps and scattered Fiduspawn paraphernalia. A FLARP manual lay in a corner by the computer, looking as if it hadn't been touched in some time. The owner of the respiteblock, Tavros Nitram, sat in his wheelchair by the window, watching the snow fall as his lusus rested in his lap.

"Tavros had a nice, quiet Twelfth, just like I did," Kanaya said. "He, however, had to deal with the very real possibility that this might be his last."

Wheelchair aside, Tavros looked no different than he usually did when he was calm. Vriska, of course, was assuming she knew what Tavros looked like when he was calm, but she suspected Kanaya of playing up a mundane incident into a profound moment. It was, however, an excellently attempted maneuver, if a bit poorly executed, so Vriska decided to play along.

"Because of what I did?"

"Yes, because of what you did. There's practically no chance that he'll survive the sweep, much less to adulthood," Kanaya said. "I hope you're satisfied with your decision to drop him off a cliff and doom him to a needlessly short existence."

And for a moment, Vriska almost genuinely regretted her actions. She hadn't meant to put a death sentence on Tavros. She just wanted to hurt him and assert her dominance. Or did she? As the event grew more distant, she was increasingly less certain what she meant to do that night.

"You've essentially doomed Terezi too, with your pointless cycle of vengeance. As if her odds weren't low enough growing up without a lusus." Kanaya took a seat on Tavros's floor. "I'd show her to you, but I'm getting tired and there's still one more set of memories that needs to be put together, even if I'm not guiding you through them. I'll just tell you, she's the only other one without a behemoth leaving somewhere. She's completely forgotten about the Twelfth Perigee, in favor of adjusting to her new condition.

"Still, for the most part, this was a nice holiday for our group, impending culling for two aside. Quiet, peaceful, almost actually joyous. It's really all you can ask of a final perigee."

And with that Kanaya was gone, but the setting remained unchanged. Evidently, Vriska hadn't woken up yet. She turned back to look at Tavros, in hopes that he would just cut to the chase about whatever there was left to say and let her be. Instead, an empty wheelchair sat in front of the window.

The Trollian chime sent a chill down Vriska's spine. The screen had been off before, but Vriska had picked up by now that that didn't mean a thing in this dream. She stepped over to Tavros's computer check the new messages, ready to accept whatever hand she was dealt.

-gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

-gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

"I should have known." Vriska snorted. "Of course you'd be back to haunt me somehow, Scourge Sister." She wheeled around, but was confronted with a whole lot of nothing.

Truly nothing. Tavros's respiteblock was gone, leaving only a barren wasteland behind. There were no signs of life, much less a familiar face. It was hardly a reassuring sight, but perhaps a sign of the end of this dream. If whatever force was holding these sights together had deteriorated and begun showing empty spaces like this, then an awakening would not be far off. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that Terezi's pester hadn't been for nothing, that she wasn't alone.

An icy hand gripped Vriska's shoulder from behind.


	4. Stave 4- The Last of the Ghosts

Vriska was quite certain that Kanaya's touch had not been that cold. Then again, hadn't all of Kanaya's touches been to Vriska's unfeeling, mechanical arm? She hadn't been paying attention to that.

She twisted away from the hand as quickly as she could, afraid that the chill would somehow seep into her own shoulder, and wheeled around, not even pausing to make sure that any fear was sufficiently hidden on her face. She needed to make sure that whatever she was up against was as harmless as she was expecting.

It was a hooded, female figure, cloaked in shades of light green. A slight smile crept across her face briefly, possibly in response to Vriska's shock, but she quickly reverted to a blank expression. It definitely wasn't Neophyte Redglare, and the hood obscured her eyes, but the exposed horns and stylish red shoes confirmed that it was Terezi after all.

Terezi had wings too, but they looked very different from Kanaya's. Vriska was tempted to ask about them, but saw no wisdom in questioning dream logic. However, it was evidently up to Vriska to ask something, because Terezi was as tight-lipped as she had been since the incident.

"So…" Vriska had to remind herself that there was nothing to be nervous about. It was just Terezi and not even the real one at that. This dread was completely irrational. "Karkat did past and Kanaya did present. I take it you plan to show me the future?"

Terezi merely nodded. She said nothing and made no move to take them away from the barren wasteland.

Vriska gave it a minute or so before speaking again. "Is this… it?"

Terezi nodded again.

"Kanaya did say that there wouldn't be another Twelfth Perigee for us, but… not for anyone? Like this is it, the world ends this sweep?"

Another nod.

Vriska placed her robotic hand on Terezi's shoulder and stared where her eyes should have been under that hood. What she asked, she asked not with concern, but with intense, almost scholarly enthusiasm. "How? How did happen? You've all been blaming me for your deaths, did I do it? Did one of those doomsday devices actually work?"

Terezi shook her head and pushed Vriska away from her. "We all did it," she whispered. "We lived through it though, by going somewhere else."

"Oh," was really all that Vriska could say to that. Terezi wasn't being very forthcoming with details about the impending apocalypse, but Vriska needed to know. "So, what did we do anyway?" She attempted to suppress her excitement at the thought of being directly involved in the event she had taken so much interest in since her days as a wriggler.

"We played a game." Terezi shrugged. "I didn't know it would kill everyone else, and I wasn't the only one, but some of us did know. We didn't have much choice but to play, though. Meteors came for us, the Vast Glub happened, and that was that for everyone else."

With that, the barren landscape vanished. Apparently, its point had been proven. It was replaced with a monochrome mishmash of buildings, with a sky filled with unnatural winged figures.

"We were split into two teams, although we soon discovered that we were playing the same game. Still, you thought there had to be a reason for the initial division," Terezi said. "Then you got an idea, the worst idea you've ever had!" Her voice was rising in anger. Terezi took a deep breath to calm herself before continuing. "You decided that we would do better if the Red Team fought the Blue Team. You had reason to believe that we get more powerful if we killed each other, I'll give you that. But I never thought anyone I ever would have called a sister would do something so awful and stupid. Now, I will present the evidence of your crime to you. I doubt that His Honorable Tyranny will take pity on someone as wretched as you."

She beckoned Vriska around a corner. "You started here, with Eridan. You learned about the god tiers and headed straight for LOWAA, hoping that if you fought, one of you would die and ascend. Tavros was with you at first, but you left him behind when he tried to talk you out of it."

Around the corner lay Eridan, surrounded by a pool of violet blood. "You won the fight, but you couldn't get him to his Quest Cocoon in time. And you certainly weren't going to have gone through the trouble of killing him just to revive him normally. So he stayed dead."

Vriska wasn't sure exactly what Terezi was talking about, but Eridan's corpse was certainly a gruesome sight. It looked like Vriska would come into the possession of a great deal of luck when it came to dice rolls in the future.

"After that, Aradia disappeared," Terezi continued, "to figure out what went wrong with the timeline. She died somewhere in the alpha timeline, but we didn't find that out until we were all dead.

"As you can expect, Feferi didn't take kindly to your murder of her former moirail… yes, former, this is the future, remember? Don't try to distract me from the evidence with your scents of confusion!

"At any rate, when you killed Eridan, Feferi wanted some form of revenge. She wasn't sure if she wanted to kill you, but she wanted you to pay for what you did. She didn't get very far in the planning before she was interrupted though."

Angels and wrath gave way to brains and fire. Feferi and Sollux stood before them now. Feferi was bent over a mobile device as Sollux solemnly stood to the side.

"Tavros told her your intentions in killing Eridan, and that made her consider the well-being of the remaining members of the former Blue Team before taking any further action. With Eridan dead and Aradia gone, the only people she had left to rally were Equius and Nepeta.

"Meanwhile, the former Red Team had to figure out what it would do about its renegade member. Karkat was at his wit's end trying to chastise you, fix the damage, convince you not to kill again. Unfortunately, you did not heed his wise advice and soon began to ignore his messages on sight."

Indeed, Karkat looked as if he was about to pass out from worry on the bank of this red river.

"I told him that he should just disown you, that the teams didn't matter anyway, so we had no responsibility for you. But he wouldn't listen. I guess that's why we respected him as our leader, though," Terezi said. "Tavros got it in his head that you needed to be stopped and ignored Karkat's warning to not go after you. He tracked you down on your own planet and charged to meet you.

"You can imagine how that went."

Bronze blood covered a scenic beach, along with some sort of rocket car with a just barely recognizable occupant.

"I guess you knew you weren't close enough to your Quest Cocoon that there was no chance you'd make it if you lost. No chance for him either." Terezi shrugged. "Not in any sense of the phrase."

The scene shifted again, this time to a dark cave, with red liquid dripping from the stalactites. "You were confused by Tavros's assault, though, and couldn't wrap your head around the idea of him suddenly standing up to you on his own. You assumed that Karkat sent him, that one of those ignored messages had been a warning and a threat. So you went to LOPAH and challenged him to a duel. You won, of course. He put up a good fight, but he couldn't bring himself to be brutal enough to take you down. You did have the courtesy to take him to his Quest Cocoon, though. Maybe you meant to give him power as an apology for taking his life along with those of his friends. In any case, it would never be enough to compensate for the rest of the fallout of your heinous deeds."

A bright, painfully cheery land filled with circus tents surrounded them. "With Tavros dead and Karkat attacked, all team-related bets were off. Karkat and Feferi reached the agreement that we all had to band together to protect ourselves, if not to take you down directly. The designated meeting spot was LOBAF, where the members of the Blue Team had already gathered. Karkat, Kanaya, and I headed straight there, but Gamzee was nowhere to be found. Sollux volunteered to go to LOTAM for a bit and bring him back.

"He did not survive the encounter."

Vriska could no longer believe this nonsensical tale. Certainly, Gamzee was a highblood, predisposed toward violence, but he had to be the most apathetic, harmless highblood to ever be hatched. There was no way he would take Sollux out, much less without a reason.

Her face must have betrayed her skepticism because Terezi said, "Don't look at me like that. I can smell you questioning the prosecution. We're not sure how it happened or why, but Gamzee snapped at some point during all this. We can only assume that it was not unprovoked, and that your actions led to his madness. The prosecution insists on this immutable fact.

"He killed Sollux, but not before he found out that everyone was hiding on LOBAF. So he came for us next." And once again, Vriska was standing on spongy, wet gray matter, this time clothed in a layer of teal blood.

"We managed to run in time," Terezi explained. "For the most part anyway. Karkat could tell that something was off about Gamzee, and made sure everyone got a head start in running toward the nearest gate. I tripped over a stray neuron, though, and after that, it was over for me.

"I think he left after that, since Karkat came back for me. And he dragged me all the way to my Quest Cocoon on LOTAF. I guess it wasn't all that far away and he had time, but in any case, here I am!" Terezi gestured to her clothes and wings. "Smelling minty fresh wherever I go!"

She quickly grew somber once again. "No one saw Gamzee again after that. We haven't even managed to catch up with him in the afterlife, but he must have died at some point. All we know is that none of us killed him.

"The next one of us to take action was Kanaya. She sent you message after message, trying to calm you down. You read them after making what you assumed was a mistake in dealing with Karkat, but you dismissed her attempts at meddling as usual. At least, you dismissed her until she suggested, in a fit of desperation, that you fight it out, non-lethally of course."

A craggier section of the beach on which they had found Tavros was covered with jade and cerulean blood, suggesting that this had not been the case.

"It's difficult to attack non-lethally with a chainsaw, and you were so lucky with your dice that it was unlucky given the circumstances. Still, you managed to survive and LORAF was behind the next gate, so you brought her there in time for her to ascend. No permanent damage done this time, although it was the last time any of us would be so fortunate."

Terezi took a seat on one of the rocks and continued, "Karkat asked that we not directly show you the next part. He wants to keep his blood color a secret after all. If you're really curious, you don't have all that long to wait. After you helped Kanaya ascend, you tracked down Nepeta and Karkat on LOLCAT. You were confident that Nepeta wasn't pulling her weight, and that you could help her do so.

"You killed them both. You were sure that Karkat would revive in a few moments due to his godly immortality and that he would take Nepeta to her Quest Cocoon, just as he had done with me days earlier. You thought it best and safest to leave immediately, before Karkat could strike at you or anyone else could show up.

"You failed to account for the fact that you killed Karkat first, when he took a blow on Nepeta's behalf. This qualified his death as heroic and he stayed dead. By the time Feferi arrived on the scene, it was too late. She tried to revive Nepeta, but her dream self had already passed. She had no way of knowing this, though, so she readied her trident, in case you came back.

"And the sight of Feferi holding her trident, standing over Nepeta and Karkat's corpses and covered in their blood was what Equius saw when he returned to the designated meeting place. Enraged by the death of his moirail, his long-standing distrust of seadwellers took over and he refused to listen to her explanations. He killed her without a moment's hesitation.

"We can't really get the details on how Equius died. He's not telling us anything, and he keeps those memories under lock and key: literally. Still, he seems to cringe a bit whenever we mention Gamzee, so maybe that dumb, crazy clown didn't completely vanish."

Waves calmly lapped against the edge of a volcano cloaked in green. "Meanwhile, Kanaya tried to ignore all of the death that plagued her teammates. She had had enough of it and tried to proceed with her quest of breeding Bilious Slick on her own, in hopes that it would all blow over," Terezi said. "A boulder dislodged itself from the rim of the Forge, though, and went straight for some frogs that she thought might be necessary. She dove in and scooped the frogs out of the way, at the expense of her own life. Apparently at this point in the timeline, Skaia judged being crushed by a boulder in place of some frogs as heroic enough to make a permanent death. It had been clear that our timeline was doomed and we were all going to die for quite some time at that point."

Vriska was tired of not being able to get a word in edgewise. "Okay, I fail to see how half of these deaths are my fault, but you're the great legislacerator. But it's down to you and me. What happened then?"

"They're your fault because you killing Eridan is what doomed the timeline in the first place!" Terezi spat. "You were never supposed to have the idea that killing each other would be a good idea, especially not while the game was going on! But as the sole remaining member of our group, and a god tier no less, I knew that I was the only one who could make you pay for what you did to us. I knew I had the evidence for your conviction, I just needed to find you and carry out the sentence.

"I found you on LOMAT again. You knew I was coming, so you were going to get close to your Quest Cocoon." A rocky mountain rose from the sea, with an orange cocoon sitting atop it. Vriska felt the compulsion to walk up the ramp that wound around the mountain to the top. She took a few steps and Terezi followed alongside her, explaining all the way. "I caught you unawares, too focused on reaching godhood to notice my approach. I could carry out your sentence quickly and without worry. Of course, I was going to die soon too, and I wasn't sure if it would be a heroic or just death, but I felt that there was only one fate befitting of you, as well as, we all hope, your crimes."

And for a moment Terezi was gone. Not in front of her, not to either side. Just before she turned around to look behind her, she felt an unbearable pain in her back and chest. She looked down to see a cane piercing through her torso, dripping with cerulean blood. She felt Terezi lean in and the cold breath sent chills through her already cooling frame as Terezi whispered in ear:

"Nonexistence!"

With that, Vriska awoke with a jump that practically sent her flying out of her recuperacoon. She was alone in respiteblock once more. She took the opportunity to take a quick inventory: No holes anywhere in her, from cane stabs or other means. She got out to check her computer: off, until she turned it on to check Trollian, where she had gotten no new messages. She heaved a sigh of relief.

It was over.

ur document here...


	5. Stave 5- An End and a Beginning

Vriska could sleep no more that day, between the excitement of a new evening and fear of the nightmare's recurrence. As long as Trollian was up and running, she figured that she would send out a few seasonal greetings, and by sending seasonal greetings, she really was just thinking of attempting to start some normal conversations for once.

No response from Aradia, but that was to be expected. She was still dead after all, even if she apparently wasn't staying that way.

No responses from Tavros, Sollux, Nepeta, or Kanaya either, but it looked like they weren't online, so Vriska decided that there was no cause for offense.

She tried Karkat and Terezi next, since they at least were on, but they seemed intent on ignoring her. No matter how many friendly hellos she sent, she got nothing in response from them. That was to be expected, though, if Karkat really were preoccupied with the safety of his lusus and Terezi really was still harboring resentment over the whole blinding thing. Vriska shook her head. Terezi was one matter, but she was placing entirely too much faith in a strange dream if she really thought that those images of Karkat waiting for his lusus had any bearing on reality. She supposed she would find out eventually if any of it was true.

She did have one thought though, a productive thing to come from the experience whether she remembered that killing her future teammates wouldn't make them stronger or not. It was an idea that she had had countless times before, or at least alternate versions of her had. Still, it was a rather novel way for her to get the idea, and perhaps that would make the difference this time around.

She started one more Trollian conversation for the night:

-arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling centaursTesticle [CT]-

AG: Equius.

AG: Equiuuuuuuuus.

CT: D - What

AG: How's your Twelfth Perigee going so far?

CT: D - It has only just begun

CT: D - Now to the point. I know you wouldn't contact me without some ulterior motive. It is not the nature of our relationship

AG: 8ullseye, Ponyboy! 8ut I thought I'd send a little 8it of holiday curiosity your way first!

CT: D - And now that the curiosity has been received

AG: Remem8er Aradia?

CT: D - Of course I do. She hasn't been dead that long

AG: Wellllllll, let's just say she were a ghost or something. And she just needed some form of 8ody to pretty much 8e her old self again.

AG: Ro8ots are still your thing, right? You see what I'm getting at?

AG: So do you think you could do that? 8uild a ro8ot for Aradia so she can get 8ack on her feet again?

AG: It could 8e a Twelfth Perigee gift, from 8oth of us, although it'll pro8ab8ly 8e completely out of season when we give it.

AG: Equius? Are you even there?

CT: D - Yes

CT: D - I'll

CT: D - I'll think about it

CT: D - Maybe see what I can do

AG: Gr8! Well, have a nice Twelfth!

-arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased trolling centaursTesticle [CT]-

That was really all there was to say on the matter at that point. It was a quiet, peaceful night for all twelve of the future heroes, a night of rest and celebration. It certainly wasn't the time to go FLARPing, or dispose of any unfortunates who happened to cross paths with Marquise Spinneret Mindfang. In fact, conversing with Equius was probably the most work that Vriska did that night.

And whether their world was watched over by the heroes of a session past or the First Guardian of the present or themselves of the future, Vriska and the eleven trolls on her list of chumps could use their blessings. It wouldn't be long enough before they would need them.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Here's wishing you a happy holiday season! Thanks for reading! (Also, I'm really sorry about Equius's quirk, but the Document Manager is just having none of those double hyphens or angle brackets. I hope it doesn't disrupt the reading too much OTL)


End file.
